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NPR's David Welna reports on this latest move in Congress to wind down the Iraq war.
DAVID WELNA: Even before Congress passed the so-called Iraq Use of Force Resolution, some lawmakers had misgivings about the fact it carried no expiration date. West Virginia Democratic Senator Robert Byrd - who strongly opposed the resolution - tried and failed to pass a measure putting a time limit on it. New York Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton, who did vote for the Iraq resolution, joined Byrd last night in calling on the Senate floor for its repeal.
BLOCK: I supported the Byrd amendment on October 10, 2002, which would have limited the original authorization to one year. And I believe a full reconsideration of the terms and conditions of that authorization is overdue. This bill would require the president to do just that.
WELNA: West Virginia's Byrd argues that the supposed threat posed by Iraq when the resolution was passed turned out to be nonexistent.
BLOCK: No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq - not just weapons that could threaten the national security of the United States, but also no weapons of mass destruction of any description.
WELNA: But there's no clear consensus on whether Congress can retract an authorization for war once that war is started. University of Wisconsin political scientist Kenneth Mayer says Congress did take similar action during the Vietnam War with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution six years after its passage.
P: There really isn't a substantial precedent for this because although Congress did wind up repealing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, that that was expressed in much more general terms and wasn't initially passed as a specific authorization or what, in modern times, amounts to a declaration of war.
WELNA: And as Duke University political scientist David Rohde points out, while Congress has the right to repeal the Iraq resolution, what the legal effect of such a repeal might be is a whole other matter.
P: From one point of view, this might be saying, you know, can you unscramble an egg? Just passing a piece of legislation that says it's unscrambled doesn't do that. The Congress authorized the president to use the force, the president used the force, and the president continues to use force.
WELNA: And to hear White House spokeswoman Dana Perino today reacting to the move to repeal the Iraq Resolution, the president would not likely ever sign such a repeal into law.
BLOCK: There's going to be many attempts to try to put a surrender date on the calendar. The president is not going to accept one.
WELNA: The University of Wisconsin's Mayer says there's virtually no chance that Congress could get the two-thirds majority as needed to override a presidential veto of such a repeal. So what would be the point in trying to pass such a measure?
P: I think it's probably largely political, I think, in trying to score points and make a point rather than any expectation that this policy would actually get enacted.
WELNA: But another Senate Democrat, Ohio's Sherrod Brown, said today that a push for a repeal of the Iraq Resolution might also help galvanize more congressional opposition to the war.
BLOCK: I think every time we bring another vote to the floor, we'll attract more Republican support to the point that more and more Republicans are going to, at some point, go to the White House and say to the president, this is a very wrong-headed strategy.
WELNA: David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.
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